365 DAYS PROJECT

2003   DECEMBER 28   #362

Baby Lu-Lu - Jesus Loves Me

I bought this lp in a used record store in Flint, MI about 15 years ago. It was the cover that got my attention and enticed me to part with the three bucks I spent on it. I was expecting it to be unlistenable, and when I took it home and played it, I found I was right! However, I was also entertained. Within it's mind-boggling wretchedness is a grating blend of annoying, frightening and unintentionally funny sound that captures your attention.

There's so much on this record to give you the creeps while making you laugh that it's hard to know where to start. Maybe it's the front cover photo. Baby Lu-Lu wears a big red bow on top of her huge bleach-blonde hairdo. She also wears a wide grin that's supposed to be friendly, but seems very menacing. Then there's the two toy poodles, in costume, on her lap. She holds them as if she's about to bite their heads off. Or maybe it's the back cover. A close reading reveals that she is a grown woman who talks in a little girl voice and calls her husband "Daddy". That raises the 'eeewww' factor by several notches!

It's in the listening, however, that one realizes the true source of the creepiness. Imagine a middle-aged woman with a southern accent doing a bad imitation of Pebbles Flintstone and you'll come pretty close to what it sounds like. Throughout the record she rambles and rants, occasionally warbling old bible school songs off key, other times telling bible stories. She never comes anywhere close to sounding like a child, the voice is way too forced and fake sounding.

I can't imagine kids ever liking this record. The fake child voice is annoying at best, frightening at worst. Her rambling narration and off key singing are simultaneously irritating and boring. I've had this record for 15 years and was only able to bring myself to listen to it in its entirety when I burned it to cdr a couple of years ago.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this record is that Baby Lu-Lu isn't the only performer of this type. Little Marcy is much more widely known (and prolific-to my knowledge, this is the only Baby Lu-Lu record ever released), but this record is much wierder than Little Marcy to my ears. It's interesting to me that there is a musical genre consisting of adults who claim to have a God-given fake child voice and use it to make Christian propaganda for children. Is it channeling, or speaking in tongues, or a heaping load of old-fashioned BS? I suppose listeners wil have to make up their own minds.

Enjoy!

- Tyler Hewitt

TT-2:56 / 2.7MB / 128kbps 44.1khz




(Images courtesy of Tyler Hewitt)